Burning VCD's from Unaired Ep files

POSTED BY: BlueZombieSyl
UPDATED: Thursday, September 11, 2003 15:27
VIEWED: 8764
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BLUEZOMBIESYL

Tuesday, June 24, 2003 7:53 PM

Hey guys,

Does anyone know how to burn VCD's from the mpeg2 files of Trash, the Message and HoG? I've been trying somewhat unsuccessfully with nero and other things, but I'm a bit lost as to how to actually go about the process without wasting a number of CD's... tried burning an SVCD but my DVD player isn't playing it. Argh. If anyone can let me know a good way to do it (I have nero) please let me know, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks so much for the three episodes, btw. You guys rock.

Syl

When you are caught in the ancient war of angels, and everything you know shatters in the face of the chaos that ensues - faith may be all you have to survive.

http://www.malakh.com

ARCHER

Tuesday, June 24, 2003 8:02 PM

I use Nero, which makes production of SVCDs a snap. Just install it, follow the directions, and have at it.

http://www.nero.com/en/#root

There ain't nothin' I can't overcome or come to know. So lay your heavy load down on me, strip everything I have away. I am not your prisoner, I am not afraid.

CALHOUN

Wednesday, June 25, 2003 11:13 PM

I am a seasoned veteran of making VCD and SVCD but I also am having difficulties making SVCD of the 800meg unaired eps.. 480x480 is (I believe) the NTSC version of an SVCD. I have made NTSC and PAL SVCD of H.O.G both of them have audio sync problems... I have made hundreds of VCD & SVCD this is the first I have ever had with audio sync problems. H.O.G plays fine through my PC TV-out. Although the audio in this file is horribly crackly and hissy.. I was hoping to get better quality after downloading 800meg on 56k connection. I guess beggars can not be choosers. :)

Why are you still talkin after its been decided

CALHOUN

Wednesday, June 25, 2003 11:28 PM

By the by - What is the point of making an 800meg file of such crappy quality anyhows? The overall quality of H.O.G could have been the same with the file being 25% the size.....

IDEFIX

Thursday, June 26, 2003 11:46 AM

ok, I really don't want to sound like a nitpicker but there's more wrong than right with these "SVCD"s.

HOG has realy crappy audio and even if you denoise it it's still crappy. I'm playing with different settings for a week or so now and I still can't get it anywhere near acceptable.

TM and Trash have noisy but denoisable audio. sounds like about anything taken from a tape. would have been nice if it was denoised before compression but that's really nitpicking.

I never looked into any audio sync problems with the SVCD because they really aren't SVCDs. they do have 480x480 (NTSC SVCD resolutin) but the aspect radio is about 1:1 and that isn't how it's meant to be. if you burn it like this the heads of people are wider than they are high, Mal looks a bit like a pumpkin on a TV ;o)
on the PC the 1:1 aspect ratio is the right one but to encode a SVCD you don't fill the upper and lower parts with black bars but you stretch the picture to the right hight. the DVD player does the return stretching to make it fit on the TV.

Firefly was broadcast in 4:3 that's 704x480 in NTSC format (TV pixles aren't square like PC pixels) to get the right format for SVCD it is compressed to 480x480 so that it looks like very thin people on the PC, the DVD player does the reverse.

one more little thing: the EPs were interlaced and resized without splitting the fields, so they have lines on moving objects even if they are watched on a TV. there's nothing one can do about that afterwards, maybe some really smart deinterlacer could smooth it out but I'm not sure of that.

I'm not sure all of that was understandable, I'm german and my english is anything but perfect.

so I recommend to watch the EPs on the PC (because the aspect-ratio is ok there) or decode, resize and reencode them. cut 76 pixels (the black boarder) on top and bottom, resize the rest to 352x240 and encode to VCD. that's still not really right but better than it was before.
...and denoise the audio it get's better if not good.

and after all this rambling on about how 'badly coded' this SVCDs are I'd still like to thank the person who made them. they are so much better than not having seen the EPs that I'll be eternally greatful. please don't take offence, I just wanted to let people know what to do with these to get the most out of it. me and my friends really enjoyed the EPs and we wouln't have if it weren't for you.

Idefix

CALHOUN

Thursday, June 26, 2003 1:10 PM

I concur with IDEFIX. I am grateful to the person who distributed the unaired eps. However, I would much prefer someone to encode into vcd from digital source..

What do you use to reduce the noise on these mpgs IDEFIX? Is there much involved?

Firefly is my verse.

IDEFIX

Thursday, June 26, 2003 1:42 PM

I use CoolEdit2000 but I'm not sure if it wouldn't be better to use something that can do a noisereduction without a noise profile. at least for the HOG file. there is normal noise in it and also some cracking sound and that one isn't easily filtered. maybe it would be better to just reduce the normal noise. and leave the cracking in. mine seems to always filter too much, when I get a noise profile from any of the still periods (where the advertising normally would be).

I'll try something else if I have time. but maybe we should not make too much fuss over this one. the UK will get the EPs in the not too far future and I'm very sure there are brits able to capture and encode in any quality we'd like to have (like say digital receiver and direct copy to PC). so maybe patience is the way to go here. these came off from not so good tapes and there would be magic involved if they were perfect quality.

I don't have a broadband connection (only ISDN 64k but running 24/7) so even if I released a 'better' version of the files I wouldn't know how to get it to you. I could ask a friend who has DSL if he could put it in his eMule. we europeans seem to prefer eMule over kazaa. I'm not sure why it isn't popular in the US. maybe you get things faster with kazaa but I don't seem to get anything at all, same with BearShare/Limewire, seems to work for small files (music and such, which I'm not interested in) but videos (I only load TV EPs and only if they're not out on DVD yet) seem to crawl and never get done over these networks.

I encoded PC versions in DivX as a test but they do have lots of interlaced artifacts and I never had to deal with those before because I always encode for MiniDVD on TV. but maybe now's the time I should take a look at some deinterlacers and make 'good' small copies of the EPs.

VCD would be possible too but that has to be deinterlaced as well and the files would be around 480MB and I really don't see that much stuff going over my connection smoothly enough for folks to load and not get frustrated. but I could share it exclusivly and send people the links and if you'd share them as well it might work. DivX I could reasonably do with about 250 MB per EP I think. there isn't that much quality to loose in the first place.

tell me if you really want me to do something and I will. but don't exspect miracles, the audio of HOG will always be bad no matter what I do.

and tell me if I should go for VCD or DivX for PC. to make a VCD out of a DivX isn't too hard but if you all want to watch it as VCD it would still be better to make it VCD in the first place and not have everybody do it for themselves.

and once again: this one is not a bashing of the original encoder. he/she did a really great job in getting it out and letting us all enjoy the unaired EPs. mine's just tweaking it a bit. the glory goes to someone else. and as stated above I'm not so sure it's wise to even try to tweak something. maybe waiting for the UK airing is the smartest way to go.

Idefix

ZIKZAK

Thursday, June 26, 2003 2:09 PM

I burned all three to VCD after re-encoding. I had to use the modified VirtualDub-MPEG2 to successfully read these not-quite-SVCDs. I ran them through the deinterlace feature and also cropped them to get rid of the bogus bars. I saved them in DiVx format. Then I re-encoded them with TMPEGEnc as regular VCD MPEG1s. The sound in HoG is crackly, but the other two are OK. They look like N-generation VCR copies, but they work OK and at least I have my Firefly fix!

I second the thanks to TRS80 for making these captures. Without that, I would have not seen these episodes for quite a while, I'm sure. But I too wish they had been encoded differently, either as compliant MPEG2 or DiVx AVI, and that the aspect ratio and sound were correct.

Perhaps if someone has a good connection (or a Bittorrent tracker), I can send them my MPEG1 files for others to download. I can't host them, but could do a transfer over my cable modem. Each file is a little over 400MB.

And maybe I could re-encode HoG with your non-crackly audio at the same time?

Ped Xing

OLDGUARD

Thursday, June 26, 2003 5:34 PM

I, too, am having problems with the encoding/sound issues. I have tried Nero, TMPGenc, in various combinations and what I get are vcd's that will play the video but after 6 seconds, the sound quits! No matter which disc I run in the DVD player! Always 6 seconds! Other VCD's burned from the same software have no probs!Anyone have any ideas about what I am doing wrong?

ZIKZAK

Thursday, June 26, 2003 6:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Oldguard:
I, too, am having problems with the encoding/sound issues. I have tried Nero, TMPGenc, in various combinations and what I get are vcd's that will play the video but after 6 seconds, the sound quits! No matter which disc I run in the DVD player! Always 6 seconds! Other VCD's burned from the same software have no probs!Anyone have any ideas about what I am doing wrong?

The bitrate on those SVCDs is REALLY high. My DVD can't take a real SVCD, but you can fake it by telling it it's MPEG1 VCD and then feeding it MPEG2 video. But my player couldn't handle the bitrate and would garble the sound after 1-2 seconds. So maybe that's what's happening to you - the drive mechanism is too slow!

You gotta re-encode it as MPEG1 VCD. Use VirtualDub-MPEG2-AC3 from here:
http://home.attbi.com/~blade66
Re-encode it as DiVx or something. Then use TMPGEnc to re-encode THAT as MPEG1 in regular VCD format. This will work. You also have to set VDub to crop the "bars" off and deinterlace. Then stretch the video in TMPGEnc to fix the funny aspect ratio.

Or host a torrent for my VCD MPEG files... *grin*

Ped Xing

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